Dark Blue
by Chocolatheque
Summary: Being teen superheroes does not deny them of teen problems. It simply makes their problems exponentially stranger. Unrelated oneshots, sometimes general, sometimes romance.
1. run free

_author's note: Well. Seven years ago, I made a ffn account to post my Teen Titans fanfiction, and now here I am, seven years later, posting Teen Titans fanfiction again. HRM. On a complete whim, my sister and I thought it'd be a fun trip down nostalgia lane to rewatch TT in its entirety, since it was my middle school obsession and also because I missed a lot of season five when it originally aired, and I have found my Titans passion altogether renewed. So I couldn't resist the insatiable urge to write about these silly teens again._

_This thing is basically going to be a bunch of unrelated oneshots. I put Raven and Beast Boy as the main characters because they're my favorites and will likely show up the most, but don't be surprised if chapters about other characters show up too. Also as far as pairs go, I'm boring and like BBRae and RobStar, but I'm open to dabbling in other pairs (whether romantic or not) as well. Romance won't always be the main focus. Feel free to suggest characters, themes, or pairs for me to write about :)_

_This is a darned long author's note! Geez._

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><p><strong>16. Run Free<strong>

**Focus: Beast Boy**

**Word count: 1711**

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><p>Out of all the Titans, Beast Boy is privately considered by his peers to be the one with the most control over his superpowers. On the surface, this seems to be a misplaced judgment, but both Raven and Starfire's powers are at the whim of their emotions, and Cyborg's are limited by his technical understanding and hardware. Beast Boy's animal forms come more naturally to him than the others' paranormal capabilities do, and sometimes the girls and the half-robot man make off-handed comments about how nice it must be to not be restrained by anything.<p>

Beast Boy shrugs and laughs good-naturedly when the subject is breached. He knows how Raven's powers are volatile, how everyday is a struggle to keep them in check for the safety of others, how she secretly wishes she could just relieve her pent-up feelings once in a while but simply can't risk it. He knows how Starfire still misses her own culture's way of embracing emotions and passions wholeheartedly, how she often reins in her zealous feelings for the sake of cultural sensitivity, how this sometimes throws her powers off balance. He knows how even now, Cyborg hasn't completely come to terms with his body and its needs, how he has to struggle through puberty with flesh and metal mutually rejecting each other, how anger surges through the young man's circuits any time he's stumped on an aspect of his mechanical half and needs to consult someone from S.T.A.R. Labs for assistance. Their leader, however bereft of super powers he may be, more than compensates for his shortcomings with intense training and sheer determination that could be taken as a power in itself.

Beast Boy doesn't think that, in comparison to his teammates, his own struggles are worth mentioning. He's learned better over the years how to cope with the issues, anyway, and he doesn't want to seem petty in the face of their far more taxing personal hurdles.

Yet, the fact remains that there are times where he feels he is being splintered into a thousand pieces. During those times, he leaves the tower; sometimes being outside where he can smell the wind and hear the world allays the problem a little. But even alone, surrounded by nature, his problem persists.

It comes and goes in waves, but Beast Boy struggles with conflicting instincts.

While his shapeshifting is in many ways more streamlined with his regular inclinations than the others' abilities are, sometimes unexpected animalistic desires hit him like a blow in the gut, and when the desires are at odds with each other, it's like being punched _and_ pulled into all different directions at the same time. Often, for example, when the weather turns cold, his instincts urge him to leave. Leave, _fly away_, you don't belong here. You belong somewhere warm. Other sets of instincts tell him to stay; stay with the pack. Stay where it's safe. This is your den. Some nights he can't sleep because a piece of him is roused by the darkness, prepared to hunt by the moonlight. Meanwhile, another piece yearns for sporadic, light sleep, because he needs to stay on his toes, stay alert at all times, keep an eye on his territory.

He needs to sleep, he needs to run, he needs to swim, he needs to prowl. Some days, he feels so many different impulses and needs that he wants nothing more than to break down and scream. It's all overwhelming to say the least, and his ultimately human body always ends up worn and confused. The solution is usually going through the demanding instincts like a to-do list and satisfying them as best as he can, one at a time. He'll fly around the roof for a while, then burrow in the island's soft soil, then howl at the moon. It doesn't always completely rid him of the itching inclinations, but it relieves him to varying degrees.

Today is one of those days where a few too many instincts are clawing at the corners of his mind, and he just doesn't have the capacity to pick them apart and process them cohesively. He instead opts to cope with himself by brooding alone.

The wall of rocks by the shore has become his go-to "spot" over the years, and today is no exception. He inhales, savoring the familiar scent of wet soil tinged with a distant, wafting hint of the city. For a while, he's able to force his mind to focus solely on external stimulation: the salty air, the cool, smooth rocks, the changing colors in the sky. By the time the sun slips away for its other obligations, however, he remembers the initial motivation for escaping to his thinking spot in the first place; instincts crash back into him like a runaway car, and he holds his head and groans.

This feeling is familiar, and he's been dancing around the issue for quite a while, but Beast Boy is not really one to lie to himself. This sensation, of pulsating veins and tensing limbs and dilating eyes and control slipping between his fingers like it's made of liquid, is all too much like how he felt when The Beast took over. After talking with a certain empath about The Beast, he came to accept that it was a natural part of him, but another part of him fears it yet. Certainly, his primal side had pure intentions the first time it reared its head, but what if that's not always the case? What if the next time he channels it, it gives in to less wholesome notions?

"Kinda late for a swim," interrupts a monotone voice he's too intimately familiar with to require turning around and seeing its owner.

"Yeah," he replies dismissively, giving a shrug that he hopes looks relaxed. "Just thought I'd enjoy the evening air."

"Are you sure that's all it is?" Raven asks, sliding down into a sitting position next to him.

"Yeah! I mean, it's nice weather, and who knows how much longer it'll be like this, what with winter around the corner. It'd be a waste to not enjoy it now and then, and plus—"

"Beast Boy," she cuts in with an even tone.

"Huh?"

"Just tell me what's wrong."

Beast Boy rubs the back of his head and shoots her a sheepish grin. "Guess I can't lie to an empath, huh?"

She shakes her head. "I don't need to use empathy on you. You're easy to see through. I mean, you're babbling about the weather, you haven't made one witty comeback, and you haven't said the word 'dude' a single time. Something's obviously wrong."

Torn between feeling offended that she thinks of him as transparent and flattered that she's showing a roundabout form of concern, he finally decides to just laugh. "Dude, I do not say 'dude' _that_ much."

"Of course," she says with a sarcastic eye roll, and the faintest of smiles. "So…?"

"So… I guess I'm kind of struggling with something personal lately. Like, I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like I'm arguing with myself internally." He pauses to see if she has any comments yet, but the only indication Raven gives of her attention is a patient nod. He continues, "It's kind of stupid, but sometimes it's as if there's a zillion animals in my head, arguing about what I should do with myself. I must finally be goin' crazy, huh?"

Raven does not return the wry smile he offers her. Her mouth twists in contemplation before replying sincerely, "It's not crazy. I can relate pretty closely to that feeling. You know, with my… splintered emotions."

"Oh yeah… I never thought about that." Beast Boy considers this comparison with an uncharacteristically serious expression. Having met Raven's personified emotions for himself, he can definitely visualize them clashing and contradicting each other in the same way his animal instincts are. "So what do you do? When they tear you into different directions?"

"I know this answer won't excite you, but most of the time, I meditate. Meditation isn't only good for keeping emotions in check, but also for disentangling them from one another and rationalizing them as well. Instincts and emotions are a little different, but I think the principle should still apply."

"Then… do you think you could teach me?" Beast Boy bites his bottom lip and glances up at Raven to gauge her reaction.

The girl's neutral expression breaks for a brief moment to express surprise before hastily returning to normal. "You… want to learn how to meditate? Are you serious? You do realize that there's no talking, joking, or other obnoxious bodily noises during meditation, right?"

"C'mon, Raven, give me a little more credit!" the changeling insists with a playful glare. "It can't be all bad if you do it all the time. Teach me how to meditate."

His companion takes a long, thoughtful pause before she finally yields with a shrug, taking up her usual lotus position. Beast Boy scrambles his limbs to copy her. Raven raises an eyebrow, amused and reminded of the time she taught Starfire how to meditate. She's suspicious, initially, that Beast Boy is insincere in his request, but one look at his intense concentration dispels any suspicion. He _actually_ wants to learn how to meditate.

Once his eyes are closed, she permits herself a tiny smile. "Find your center, and focus your energies. In your case, try to empty your mind of all instincts. Once your mind is clear, then gradually try to sort your way through each impulse."

Beast Boy nods, and then mumbles affirmation once he remembers that her eyes are closed too. "Hey, Raven?"

"Yes?"

He pauses, choosing his words carefully before settling upon something simple. "Thanks, for helping me out."

She peeks an eye open at him and finds he's doing the same. "No problem."

Beast Boy and Raven chant the empath's regular incantation together for a while, and his mind does eventually unravel itself. Each thought and desire comes loose until the knot finally dissipates altogether, and he's not sure if it's the meditation or Raven's proximity that allows him to put the nagging at ease. Either way, he finally feels free to relax.


	2. new love

_author's note: "These stories won't always be focused on romance," Cafechan whispered fervently as she wrote stupid fluff about the same two characters in every chapter_

_Cries._

_But in all seriousness, my muse for these two is just working in overtime lately. I promise I'll write some more general pieces later. I sorta lost control over this chapter, haha._

_Thanks for the favorites, guys!_

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><p><strong>6. New Love<strong>

**Focus: Raven and Beast Boy**

**Word count: 2213**

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><p>The first week Beast Boy and Raven start dating, not a lot changes other than Beast Boy dedicating a lot of his time to pondering in amazement the fact that… well, he and Raven had started dating.<p>

Starfire receives the news happily but not a bit surprised. The alien girl is naive to the ways of earthlings, but by no means oblivious to affairs of the heart. Robin and Cyborg, on the other hand, think it's an elaborate prank and have to receive confirmation from Raven several times before they can wrap their minds around this new development (much to Raven and Beast Boy's mutual irritation).

When pressed for details over "how on earth she fell for the grass stain," the empath answers calmly that she spent the better part of the year trying to figure that out for herself and finally decided that sometimes, things like that creep up on you over an indecipherable period of time. Everyone expects Raven to be cagey and flustered over her newly public affections, but the subject is already an old one for her, and she's surprisingly comfortable with talking about it. A heartfelt girl talk with Starfire reveals that Raven spent quite a lot of time arguing with herself prior to ever presenting the topic to Beast Boy, in the hopes that she could somehow talk herself out of or otherwise vindicate her initially unwanted feelings.

She should have known, of course, that Beast Boy is not one to allow anything involving him remain private, and his eventual discovery of her—requited, as they would both find out—feelings was inevitable.

The Titans all possess well-intentioned curiosity over how this shift in relations will change the dynamic between their two most volatile teammates, but the change is surprisingly anti-climatic. Raven is microscopically more receptive to Beast Boy's usual pestering and flirting, and Beast Boy is slightly more daring when it comes to touching her—albeit the touches are limited to benign contact like pokes, pats, and brief hugs. If they didn't know better, it almost wouldn't seem like the two were dating at all.

But the key to their relationship lies within their private encounters.

Like with most anything that requires her to step outside of her comfort zone, Raven tactically mapped out exactly how things would work out, and Beast Boy dutifully takes her guidelines to heart. He knows and understands better than anyone that it's a big deal for Raven to openly express anything other than disinterest and disdain (and maybe it's because of this understanding that she's giving this whole thing a chance). She covertly loathes the idea of treating their relationship like a bomb that needs to be handled just so, but the reality is, anything involving her emotions does not really bear many differences from a bomb. Having been the scapegoat—and often cause—of most of her past emotional outbursts, Beast Boy understands this as well.

The first and foremost step to her 'Manage to Date Someone Without Supernaturally Causing Jump City to Combust' plan (aptly named so by Beast Boy) is, "No public displays of affection. At least, not yet." This rule meets the changeling's ears with a disappointed 'aww,' but he begrudgingly accepts it. The idea of Raven being completely okay with PDA right off the bat is admittedly unrealistic—and a little humorous—anyway.

But even still, Raven realizes that she's forcing a lot of compromises onto him and tries to make just as many herself. For as much as she complained in the past about Beast Boy being a nuisance, she's well aware that putting up with her own icy tendencies takes a patient and remarkably persistent person, and dating those icy tendencies is no easy feat. She genuinely wants to make their relationship worth all of her shortcomings, though she'd go shopping for lingerie with Starfire before she'd admit such a thing to her boyfriend's face.

"Hey," she calls out quietly one evening, clutching a book that she has no intention of actually reading.

"Hey yourself," Beast Boy replies from the living room couch, pausing his game long enough to wave her over. She approaches, uncharacteristically hesitant, and he pauses again to appraise her body language. "Is somethin' wrong?"

"No," she says quickly, and as always, her tone is too neutral for him to discern whether or not she means it. "Everyone went to bed."

"Yeah?" His face scrunches slightly as he puts his brain into overdrive to decipher what this cryptic message is supposed to convey. When he takes too long to think about it, Raven sighs—not an impatient or irritated sigh, but it's more like a labored exhale.

"I mean… no one's around," she elaborates, and she can't look him in the eyes anymore. His eyes spark to life with realization, and he lets out an audible 'ah!' before reaching over for the Gamestation's power switch and sending his fictional quest to a premature end. He gives it little thought; there are far more pressing matters in the three-dimensional world right now.

"What do you want to do tonight?" he asks her with a polite smile, ever conscious of Raven's comfort zone. They take advantage of times like this when their friends are not around to practice wading into the world of 'acting like a couple.'

She huffs—again, not in vexation, but in something more akin to embarrassment, if that's even possible for the apathetic girl—and folds her arms as she seats herself a foot away from him. "I don't know. You decide."

He quickly moves to close the gap between them, the freedom to 'decide' quickly ridding him of his inhibitions. One arm snakes around her shoulders and crushes the one foot distance into a negative three inches. "I just wanna spend time with you."

"Beast Boy, we live together. We spend all day, everyday together," she quips sardonically to ease this intimacy into something resembling their old banter. This whole 'dating' thing is considerably less nerve-wracking if she can just think of it as an evolved form of their friendship.

Beast Boy makes that resemblance a lot harder to maintain when he presses his lips against her cheek. She can feel in the curve of his mouth that he's smiling, the cheeky monkey. "Aw, c'mon, Rae. You know that's not what I mean. I don't wanna just spend time with a teammate, I wanna spend time with my girlfriend—man, I still can't believe I get to call you that. _Girlfriend._ Yeah, that's Raven, my _girlfriend_. Why yes, this is my _girlfriend_ here, no big deal. Except yes, big deal, because my _girlfriend_ is Raven—"

"Garfield, if you do not stop saying that word, I will personally see to it that the title no longer applies to me." Her voice is stony, but the color of her cheeks negates her attempt at feigning exasperation, and Beast Boy only laughs while lacing his fingers between hers.

"Sorry," he says, but he isn't one bit sorry, and she knows it. "If it's okay with you, I just kinda want to PDA minus the P tonight."

Raven only manages a mangled and utterly nondescript noise in response. Beast Boy decides to interpret this sound as, "Sounds great to me" and settles his lips on the crook of her neck.

It takes a great, concentrated effort on her part to not shudder at the sensation—not because it's unwanted, but because she simply doesn't know how to steel herself against the wave of emotion that accompanies it. She copes by allowing her fingers tighten slightly around his, gentle and hopefully affectionate, and this minuscule pressure on his knuckles makes Beast Boy falter. It feels a lot like she's bracing herself, and the last thing he wants to do is something that makes her upset.

"Raven, is this okay?" he asks earnestly, his voice small and squeaky, and it reminds her of the way his voice sounded on the first day met: unassuming and eager to please and strained with a small note of fear—fear of making a mistake, fear of incurring someone's disappointment yet again, fear of rejection.

Raven opens her mouth to say, 'Yes, of course it is,' but the words get snared in her throat, and she exchanges a wide-eyed stare with him for a moment while she tries to figure out what it is about this boy, and only this boy, that always makes her surprise herself. Even before their clumsy confessions, before she had any inkling of romantic affections towards him, he was always the one to drag her from her dark, lonely recesses and force her to try something new.

All of her friends have had a part in helping her grow, of course, but they maintain respectful distances. Cyborg is her confidant on the rare occasions that she needs one, and he always knows the secret to tackling an issue and making it more manageable. He's an affectionate brother figure Raven never realized she craved to have in her life, and like a good big brother, he knows when to back off and let Raven have her space. Starfire is the warm, overbearing affection that helps Raven to loosen up and remember that she _is_ still a girl, and it's fun to forget her apathetic shield now and then and enjoy a girl's day out with the kind-hearted Tamaranean. The alien girl is like sunshine and rain on dry, abandoned terrain, and Raven harbors a lot of fondness towards her for it. Raven's bond with Robin is a difficult one to give a label to, because he's like a brother without the childish banter, like a father while still remaining on the level of an equal peer, and like a lover without the romantic inclinations. If she had to put their relationship into words, it's a mutual respect and understanding that could only ever be shared by two people who have been in each other's minds. Robin understands Raven's limits intimately, and he's always the first one to rest a reassuring hand on her shoulder when he knows she needs to take it easy for a while.

Beast Boy is another thing entirely, and her dynamic with him is every bit harder to define. He's a bundle of contradictions, pesky and sweet, nosy and thoughtful, juvenile and mature beyond his years. Like Robin, but to a slightly lesser degree, he understands that Raven has limits; he just chooses to drag her across their borders with her kicking and screaming. Every aspect of interacting with him is like stretching a little further past one's range of flexibility, because it's uncomfortable and leaves her sore and at the same time increases her ability to crawl out of her carefully constructed barriers, and she's never sure whether to react to this by slapping him over the back of the head or by thanking him. If she had to put _their_ relationship into words, he's the only person who could watch her summon her demon father, nearly end the world, and still have the capacity to worry that her change in uniform colors meant that she had changed as a person. (He's also the only person who would forcibly hug her after the whole ordeal. She complained about it at the time, but she also made no effort to struggle against his grip. She has a feeling that he noticed this.)

"Look," Beast Boy's apologetic voice interrupts her train of thought and snaps her back into the present. "I don't wanna do anything you don't wanna do. Okay, Rae? If you just want to sit together and talk about something else, I'm up for that."

Raven bites her bottom lip, shakes her head, and thinks to herself that Beast Boy's the only person in the world she could ever be this close to without falling apart, the only person she could lean towards and kiss without fear, and the only reason she's come this far in emotional expression is because he's the one who trained her how to step outside of her claustrophobic restrictions, whether he realizes it or not. The contact between them is light and electric, and to her repeated surprise, it feels right. Not dangerous or uncomfortable or forced. Just, right.

When he finally pulls back, there's a lopsided, disheveled sort of grin on his face. "Whoa," is all he manages, along with a string of breathless laughter. The kiss was benign, really, but the fact that it was Raven who initiated it is what's left him winded. And he supposes that this is what makes her exciting; Raven never yields to anything easily, and that's what makes every look, every touch, and every single shy smile so much more rewarding.

It's through such patient compromises that their budding relationship functions, and whether or not the others understand that is irrelevant. They know what they're doing, and they'll take as much time as they need to take each step forward together. Even if it's by millimeters, Raven is being lured out of her shell, and Beast Boy will wait until the second ending of the world for the day where she can be completely comfortable with herself and, by extension, him.


	3. notes

_author's note: Can't sleep. Something short._

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><p><strong>30. Notes<strong>

**Focus: General, the main five**

**Word count: 424**

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><p>Nobody remembers when the trend began, but one day someone in the tower got the idea to leave sticky notes on the fridge as reminders or messages, and it wasn't long before the entire team caught on to the handy habit. And, as with anything involving the active minds of all five Titans, the situation is quickly spiraling out of control.<p>

On the upper left, there's a note war going on about the grocery list between Beast Boy and Cyborg. That one started with Cyborg making a memo to himself to buy steaks while they were on sale, and Beast Boy scribbling it out to write, "ANIMAL HATER!" By now, there's at least ten notes of that conversation, and most of them involve one boy scribbling out something the other wrote and turning it into an unfunny "yo mama" joke.

Off to the side, written in small, clean letters, is a request from Raven for someone to purchase new shampoo. Upon running out of her usual, generically scented shampoo, Starfire gave her a surplus of her own strawberry scent; Raven knows the girl meant well, but Beast Boy won't stop sniffing her hair and calling her Strawberry Shortcake now, and that definitely needs to end as soon as possible. Beast Boy has tacked a note next to hers with a crude drawing of Raven dressed as the aforementioned fruit-themed character, and Raven wasted no time in adding, again with her perfect, small, innocuous handwriting, "I _will_ hurt you."

Aside from memos and shopping lists, on the rare occasion that a Titan heads out on their own, they're always careful to leave a note now. Some of them are too cute for anyone to bother taking down, even long after they've expired in relevance, such as Robin's message reading, "I'll miss you guys this weekend, left doughnuts on the countertop for you all, the one with pink star sparkles is for Star!" from the week he left to do some specialized training. Another such message is Cyborg's, "Bee's picking me up to help with some tech over at the East tower, I'll trust you guys with my Baby while I'm gone if Beast Boy promises not to eat in the backseat!"

When a good mood strikes, sometimes anonymously encouraging messages pop up too. "Great teamwork yesterday, guys," "You're all my best friends," "Thanks for picking up more sticky notes, Robin," and other things of that nature.

The Titans' fridge has become a colorful plethora of the thoughts, jokes, and love shared by five super friends.


	4. all the little things

_author's note: I'm working my way through reading the old "New Teen Titans" comics. I get random bits of inspiration for writing about the animated series Titans while I do, lol. I noticed The Doom Patrol was changed in the animated series to have matching uniforms, and this idea spawned from there._

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><p><strong>70. All the Little Things<strong>

**Focus: Beast Boy, Robin**

**Word count: 973**

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><p>They had been through a lot together, and they butted heads on more than one occasion, but even now, Beast Boy held a great measure of respect and admiration towards Robin. Beast Boy admired all of his teammates in different ways, but with his respect towards Robin came a hidden level of fear—not a fear linked to distrust or a sense of danger, but rather a deferential fear of authority. Robin never really held a meeting and officially declared himself their leader, but maybe that was because he didn't need to. Each member knew—even Cyborg, who sometimes challenged Robin's jurisdiction—that Robin was the leader they all needed.<p>

But still, Beast Boy's regard towards Robin's leadership differed from the others'. Beast Boy thought maybe it was because Robin had worked with Batman before and therefore possessed some kind of 'big shot superhero seniority' over him. Robin thought maybe it was because Mento's iron fist of leadership had imprinted a fear into Beast Boy's mind from a young age. Whichever it was—or if it was a mix of both—the ultimate result was that Beast Boy retained the tendency to avoid one-on-one bonding with the Boy Wonder.

That's why Robin found it surprising when the shapeshifter caught him alone in the kitchen and seated himself on the opposite side of the table with a banana. Beast Boy's contemplative expression made Robin suspect he wanted to ask something, and his hunch was proven after a quiet interval of staring.

"Hey, Robin," Beast Boy started between bites. "Mind if I ask something?"

Robin prodded needlessly at his bowl of half-eaten cereal and nodded. "Of course. Is something wrong?"

The younger boy shrugged shyly. "Naw, nothing wrong. I guess I was just kind of wonderin'… how come the Teen Titans don't wear uniforms?"

Robin blinked a few times, which went unnoticed beneath his mask. He looked down at himself and then over at his teammate, both of them clad in their usual multi-colored costumes. "Uh, Beast Boy… I don't know about you, but tights and capes and stuff aren't exactly casual wear for me, y'know?"

"No, no!" The green boy giggled and shook his head. "I meant, like… like the Doom Patrol. Mento always made us wear those matching uniforms. A lot of other superhero teams wear matching uniforms, too. And when I first joined the Titans, I always thought that you'd eventually start pitching uniform ideas. But you never did."

Robin hummed in understanding, and then in consideration. "To be honest, the idea of making matching costumes never really crossed my mind. And for a good reason, too, I think."

"Why's that?" Beast Boy asked with round, curious eyes that reminded Robin of a cat finding a ribbon whizzing by. Which was ironic, considering Beast Boy _was_ a cat, sometimes. Robin smiled at the thought, despite himself.

"I mean, I think team uniforms have good points. It gives everyone a sense of singularity. It makes it easier for civilians and other outsiders to recognize the members as a unit. But I don't think the Teen Titans need that. We understand, even without costumes, that we're a team. We understood on our own that we work the best together, and others can see that as well through our actions. At the same time, we're more than just a team of superheroes. We're an amalgamation—" he paused at Beast Boy's perplexed face and amended, "—er, _combination_ of individuals with their own lives and experiences. We all have our own personal pasts and burdens that came before the Teen Titans, and I respect that."

He paused to give Beast Boy a moment to process this information before continuing, "Like your uniform is from your time with the Doom Patrol, and they'll always be a part of you, even if you're not fighting with them anymore. Starfire's uniform reminds her of her life on Tamaran, which is still very much an integral part of her as a person even though she accepts her life on earth. And I think Raven would throw a fit if I tried to force her into anything other than her cape."

The two boys shared a silent—although cautious, just in case—laugh at that.

"I have to consider Cyborg too. Clothes aren't terribly convenient for him. My uniform means something to me as well. And I don't think it's just a matter of us being attached to our clothes, but rather… we're not throwing away what we were just to be 'the Teen Titans'. We're working with what we were and using it towards what we are now. Does that make sense?"

Beast Boy contemplated Robin's words with the final bite of his banana. Such a sentiment had never occurred to him before, and it almost amazed him how much consideration Robin put into everything, as usual. "That does make sense," he finally said with an appreciative nod. "You know something, Robin? I have no idea where I'd be if it weren't for you."

The eternally serious Robin was visibly shaken at this statement. "Come again?"

The changeling shot his peel at the trashcan and missed. "I mean… if it weren't for you, we all probably would have all gone our own ways that day we met. I would have been alone. If it weren't for the Teen Titans—"

Robin held up a gloved hand and halted the thought. "But it was. We're all together, and nothing's gonna change that."

"Yeah. Guess so!"

Robin stood up, tossed his bowl into the sink, and picked up his friend's peel off the floor, a smile flickering across his face before he threw it away properly. "And, besides all that…"

"Hm?" Beast Boy stood up with a stretch and followed Robin to the door.

"Team uniforms are kinda dorky."

Beast Boy chuckled. "I'll say."


	5. birthday

_author's note: Here's more ridiculous shipping that WAS in honor of Valentine's Day, though I am very late… I kept rewriting everything. And it was supposed to be short, but next thing I knew, it was taking up several pages. Argh. These two are harder to write fluff for than I remember._

_There's some footnotes at the bottom for those unfamiliar with the comics, and also some notes on Raven's empathy._

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><p><strong>23. Birthday<strong>

**Focus: Raven and Beast Boy**

**Word count: 2538**

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><p>Among her many powers, Raven was aware that she possessed some latent empathetic abilities, but for some reason they were considerably harder to hone than the abilities she usually called upon. There had only been a few occasions where she was able to summon them at will, and a few more where they manifested on their own, and no matter how much she meditated over it, empathy never seemed to get any easier to control.<p>

After a few years with the Teen Titans, Raven still didn't feel like she had a hold on the pesky power, but she could feel the extent of its range widening and growing stronger.

Her first indication of its expanding reaches was the emotions she sensed from her teammates. Raven had always felt the emotions of her friends in random bursts, but it had taken very concentrated emotions, and they were hazy—like a vague fog of feelings that she happened to pass through once in a while. And usually if the emotion was strong enough to manifest into an emotional cloud, the person emitting it tended to make their feelings obvious in other, less supernatural ways. Raven didn't need empathy to tell when Robin felt stumped because he clenched his jaw a certain way. When Starfire felt confused, she bit her bottom lip gingerly. When Cyborg felt frustrated, he started to breathe more heavily. When Beast Boy felt guilty, it mattered not if he retained his human form; he always looked like he had an invisible tail between his legs. Raven fancied herself to be a relatively attentive person, superpowers or not, and her weak bouts of empathy had been rather superfluous at the time.

But lately…

Lately the fogs had intensified and thickened, and there were days where Raven needed to dedicate a great deal of concentration towards switching her empathy _off_. Sometimes she felt like she was living vicariously through all four of her cohorts, and needless to say, the emotional stimulation was exhausting. It didn't take concentrated feelings anymore, and half of the time, she wasn't even sensing anything unusual. Just normal, everyday emotions.

Out of everyone, Beast Boy's mood was the steadiest, which didn't really surprise her. Robin and Cyborg were both generally even-tempered, but they tended to let bad moods hit them like a sack of bricks, and Starfire was naturally extreme in all of her emotions. It took something steep and serious for there to be a notable dip in Beast Boy's emotional aura. He was, perhaps, even more in control of his emotions than Raven was, and she found this thought to be only the slightest bit disconcerting.

Raven felt very guilty when she remembered Beast Boy's birthday, not of her own accord or by checking a calendar, but by the ginormous plummet in his emotional energies. She woke up that morning feeling intense secondhand depression and only realized after a long shower that the bad mood wasn't her own. She remembered, vaguely, waking up with this kind of devastating gloom before, and that's when she recalled that the cause was Beast Boy's birthday last year. Not even the Doom Patrol visiting to help with a surprise party had been able to completely erase the heavy aura that surrounded him that day.

Birthday. It was Beast Boy's birthday.

"Great."

She'd yet to purchase anything for the boy, and she wondered if anyone else forgot; no one had mentioned the date to her. But she decided a last minute shopping expedition with Starfire could wait until later. Right now, dealing with Beast Boy's overwhelming melancholy seemed more meaningful. Normally, she'd let him ride out his sour moods alone, but… well, it was the guy's birthday. The least she could do was make _some_ kind of attempt at cheering him up.

She found herself in front of his room, hand hovering doubtfully over the door's surface, and suddenly she felt quite self-conscious. She couldn't even remember the last time she had actively sought Beast Boy's attention while he was still in his room. Any Titan being closed up in their room usually meant they were either sleeping, partaking in some sort of personal hobby, or brooding, all of which being activities to not interrupt. If Raven wanted anyone's attention, it waited until they left their room. She was incredibly familiar with the irritation that accompanied a shattered alone time, and she was certainly not going to be the one to inflict that irritation onto others.

She sighed at her own indecision and reminded herself that this _was_ Beast Boy she was dealing with. If anything, he was probably just sleeping, and she could blame the wakeup call as being Robin's orders. Her knuckles finally rapped gently against the metal surface. But no sound or indication of activity met her ears, so she said, "I'm coming in," briefly before phasing through the obstruction.

To her surprise, Beast Boy was not asleep, but sitting on his bed with a pair of headphones and his back facing the door. That explained his lack of response, Raven thought as she invited herself to the edge of his mattress. The dip in weight at last alerted Beast Boy to her presence, and he responded with a girlish scream.

"AH! _Dude!_ Where did _you_ come from!" he hissed as the headphones flew off his head and his nostrils flared in fear.

"When a demon daddy and a human mommy love each other very much—well, they didn't really, but I digress—"

"Okay, very funny," he drawled, trying to look unimpressed, but there was still a tiny grin on his face. "Seriously though, that's not fair! You get mad if I even stand outside of your room, and you're allowed to just jump into my bed?"

Raven provided no response to that other than an arched brow. "Mm. Happy birthday, by the way."

Any traces of surprise or playfulness abruptly drained from his features, leaving an alarmingly neutral expression in their wake. "Ah, yeah. Thanks."

"Not in the birthday spirit, I take it," she stated more than asked.

"You could say that. I'll be honest, I just kinda want to be alone for now… I figure we're gonna do dinner or something like that with the others later, anyway, so I thought I'd just… chill in here for a while."

The unfiltered heavy-heartedness emanating from Beast Boy's being was worrying Raven more than she cared to admit. She understood emotional warfare better than anyone, but when it came to actually setting those issues out on the table and discussing them with others, she was woefully unskilled. Usually she didn't have to wander too far out of her comfort zone during the rare occasions she and Beast Boy had feelings sessions because he offered elaborations without prompt. But now he was shutting her down and essentially asking her to go away without so much as a clue to what ailed him, and Raven couldn't decide what to say to that.

She opted to keep it simple. "Do you want to talk?"

Beast Boy stared dubiously, as if startled by the question. "Do you?"

"Well, I don't want force you to talk about anything you don't want to. But I also _don't_ want you sulking on your own birthday," said Raven.

"Aww, good to know you care, Rae." A bit of his grin returned, though his expression remained contemplative. "I'm not sure if I want to talk about… well, what's got me 'sulking.' But I wouldn't mind talking normally… You wanna pick a topic?"

Raven shrugged with the words 'I'm not much of a conversationalist' at the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed them and said instead, "Alright." She hummed for a moment before a topic came to mind. "On your birthday last year, you remember how we had the Doom Patrol over? Well, they helped us with decorations while you were out, and Mento and Elasti-Girl got to telling stories about you."

Beast Boy's eyes got wide. "Uh oh. Which ones? Nothing Cyborg has filed away for future black mail material, right? Oh man, tell me they didn't tell you guys the one about the waffle iron…"

A small smirk graced Raven's lips. "Waffle iron?"

"Huh?" He blinked. "Uh… who said anything about a waffle iron? Let's go back to you talking and me not talking."

"Indeed. Well, let me think… I recall one about you taking apart Robot Man—"

"Dude, he was livid about that one."

"—and one about some kind of freakish mineral-fruit-monster man thing—"

"Oh god, I don't even want to think about _thinking about_ that guy again."

"—ah, and Elasti-Girl said you really liked The Frog Prince, apparently."

"Huh?" Beast Boy's eyebrows twisted together in contemplation. "I don't remember that."

Raven shifted into her usual lotus position and turned herself so that she was properly facing her companion. "Yeah, she said you'd turn into a frog before bed and she had to kiss you and call you Prince Charming, or something. Starfire thought that was cute."

"_Oh!_ That!" he chuckled sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. "Yeah, heh, I only did that when Mento wasn't around. He always got kinda mad when he saw Rita—er, Elasti-Girl—babying me."

She would have missed it if she weren't already carefully monitoring the atmosphere, but Raven sensed the slightest dip in Beast Boy's mood and decided to seize the moment of weakness. "Beast Boy… do you blame yourself for Steve and Rita's divorce?"

The color faded from Beast Boy's face, his ears pressed back slightly, and Raven immediately wondered if maybe she shouldn't have said that. Steve and Rita's abrupt separation earlier in the year had come as a shock—though not entirely a surprise—to poor Beast Boy, and for the most part he had avoided talking about it. She didn't need to analyze his feelings to guess that she had just stabbed the bullseye of his emotional discomfort. Positive energy almost seemed to be draining from him like a punctured water balloon, and, desperate to stop the leak, Raven found herself reaching out and grabbing his left hand.

Beast Boy's spiraling depression did halt, though in favor of a startled confusion. His shoulders were tense, and his eyes were searching hers for an explanation, and he looked small and vulnerable. His gaze kept darting questioningly between their hands and Raven's face.

"I do… blame it on myself, a little," he exhaled, sounding defeated. "They had always bickered a lot, even after they got married, and I know it can't entirely be my fault… I mean, I haven't even been around the Doom Patrol much at all since I joined you guys…"

Raven nodded, silently urging him to continue.

"But it's hard for me not to think this way. After—" he paused to clear his cracking voice, "—after what happened… to my birth parents… and then that happened with Steve and Rita, and even Terra, it's hard for me to not think that maybe I'm just… bad luck or something. When my birthday comes around, it's hard for me to not wonder if my existence isn't just a curse on all the people I love."

The room was quiet as both waited to see if the other had more to say. Raven's hand remained, unmoving and reassuring, on top of Beast Boy's.

"You aren't bad luck," Raven finally said, somber. "Unfortunate things happen to everyone—some more than others. Your parents' line of work was a naturally risky one. Steve violated Rita's trust. Terra was an unsteady girl. None of those things were your choice."

The green boy shifted uncomfortably in his spot and sighed. "Maybe…"

"Not 'maybe.' If anything, you're a gift in other people's lives. Maybe you cross paths with those kinds of people for a reason. You give them something happy to remember, good memories to look back on when things look grim…"

With a flourish of her left hand, she produced a familiar copper item.

"Hey, isn't that…?"

"The lucky penny you gave me," she confirmed. "My life wasn't exactly conceived with rainbows and sunshine in mind. I spent the first sixteen years of my life thinking I was destined to die _and_ kill everyone around me in the process, you know? Not exactly a cheerful thought."

They shared an uncertain chuckle.

"But in the midst of that, a…" She smiled wryly. "A Prince Charming squirmed his scrawny green being into my life and gave me hope."

"Huh," said Beast Boy, looking more like his usual self, to Raven's relief. "Thanks, Raven. I never thought of it all that way… I feel a lot better now."

And his aura did too. The air surrounding him had returned to the state of buoyancy that usually accompanied the changeling, though this time with waves of relief and gratitude lingering at the edges. Raven almost imagined that empathetic signals were pulsing from his hand into hers, and at the thought, she quickly retracted her hand. Her empathy was getting a little too intimate for comfort, and besides that, she didn't want to rely solely on superpowers to read and communicate with him. Beast Boy was more than a teammate who happened to be feeling grim on his birthday; he was a dear confidant who needed someone to understand him. And for as much effort as he put forth towards figuring out all of her oddities, she thought it was only fair to reciprocate the effort.

Raven didn't need empathy to smile sincerely at him and receive a toothy grin in return, to revert him to a state of levity and peace, to laugh with him and share this quiet moment in which they were beginning to comprehend new aspects of each other.

"So," said Beast Boy, practically glimmering with rekindled mischievousness, "you think I'm a Prince Charming, huh?"

Monotone coated Raven's response out of sheer habit. "I was being facetious with that bit. Don't look into it too much."

"Oh, boo you and your fuh-see-shus. You totally think I'm a dreamy prince." Beast Boy stood up and offered a hand to pull Raven up as well, even though she was perfectly capable of getting up on her own. Nevertheless she accepted his hand.

"Don't put words in my mouth. I even called you scrawny in the same sentence, you know."

"Sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my _princely charms!_ Unless, of course, you're a fair maiden in distress or something. Then maybe we can make an arrangement."

"You're a dork," she stated without an inch of malicious intent.

"But I'm your dork," he replied without a centimeter of frivolousness. "So hey, if I turned into a frog, wouldja kiss me?"

Raven looked him over appraisingly as if seriously considering it for a moment before snorting. "No, thanks. I'm not a fan of amphibians."

"Aww. fine, I see how it is," he complained, the tips of his ears drooping disappointedly.

"But," she continued, gently gripping his wrists in either hand, "I guess I'm okay with a human boy. Only because it's his birthday though."

Warm breath hung between them as he concluded with a smile, "Then you're in luck. One human boy, coming right up."

* * *

><p><em>an: haha gosh. this one really escaped my grasp. sorry if it's a jumbled mess. originally i wanted to just do something with the whole prince charming/frog prince idea, and then i mixed in the development of raven's empathy, and then somehow bb's birthday and all his emotional luggage jumped the plot ship, and before i knew it things were out of control. oh well!_

_1: so some notes. one, on the frog prince thing in the first place, there's a couple of reasons i wanted to write about that! in the teen titans go comics (the ones based directly off the cartoon series), the whole thing with the doom patrol visiting and telling stories about young beast boy really does happen in an issue, and rita tells the girls about beast boy's whole affinity for the frog prince story and his bedtime routine with him turning into a frog and her kissing him goodnight, etc. at the end of the comic, beast boy (who was not around for any of these conversations) comes home to the surprise birthday party, and raven calls him prince charming (much to his confusion). i thought this was cute and i wanted to somehow expand upon it._

_in another issue, there's a picture of a frog beast boy kissing raven among the silly sd pictures that show up at the bottom of the pages… i can't be the only one who finds this significant, right? shipper goggles… (sparkles)_

_2: about raven's empathy. in The New Teen Titans comics (the old comics that the animated series is _loosely_ based off of), raven's main ability is her empathy and empathetic healing (by absorbing others' anger or pain and making it her own, then expelling it from her body). as far as i've read (which isn't terribly far, but i'm working my way through), she hasn't even used telekinetic abilities once, which seems to be her main tactic in the cartoon. we do see small bits of raven's empathetic abilities in the cartoon, such as her using her soul self to see through robin's eyes in Haunted, etc, but it's actually pretty rare imo that her empathy comes into play?_

_a lot of fanfics seem to assume that she's got it completely mastered and senses everyone's emotions all the time, and often people even assume that she can read the others' minds. while i've got no problem with that route of thinking, i'd like to believe that maybe her empathy in the cartoon isn't quite as well developed as it could be since she doesn't use it much, and there's not really any indication that she senses such things from the others, at least not in that much detail. i thought it'd be fun to toy with the idea of it working temperamentally and being one of those powers she still needs to develop. i might be a little scrambled in the technicalities of these abilities, but i tried my best with it._

_3: one final note about steve and rita/mento and elasti-girl: i don't really know a whole lot about the doom patrol outside of what we saw in the cartoon, although i know everyone but robot man and mento died prior to the events of TNTT? i believe i read somewhere that in another incarnation of the doom patrol, steve ruined his marriage with rita when she found out that he was reading her mind and using his powers on her, and considering the terrible tension between them in the cartoon (and even in the teen titans go comics, those two never stop contradicting each other!), i didn't think it was all that impossible that they might split in the cartoonverse as well. (again, i could be wrong about the details surrounding their separation in the old incarnations, but whatever, it's just an idea that i thought would be interesting to touch upon)._

_this is a long author's note. well um, thank you for reading! and thank you for reviewing! reviews make me so happy_


	6. cold

_author's note: BBRae is my unmitigated otp, but lately I really adore StarRae too. However, this chapter is purely platonic in nature._

_In the original comics, Starfire was not very fazed by/aware of nudity and the stigma behind it. I know this kind of thing would never happen in the animated series, but it's a funny idea to consider._

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><p><strong>83. Cold<strong>

**Focus: Raven, Starfire**

**Word count: 1864**

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><p>Raven had a plethora of things to adjust to during her first week living with the others in Titans Tower. The idea of living with other superheroes more or less terrified her, given her… ethnic background, but a part of her also felt like she finally belonged somewhere as well. Which was a nice thought, except the part of her that belonged was the freaky part, meaning everyone else had to be pretty freaky themselves. And that took time to get used to.<p>

Robin was easy enough to become comfortable around because he kept himself busy and didn't ask anything of her that she wasn't willing to answer, though he did emit a subtle undertone of uncertainty now and then—like he wasn't really sure if it was okay for him to take charge of everyone just yet. His unease put her on edge at times.

Similarly, Cyborg was externally enthusiastic, but despite everything he was still afraid. His human eye still narrowed at anyone he suspected of gazing too long at his robotic parts, and this fear caused him to butt heads with Robin quite a lot. They were both teetering on the edge of this foray into 'being a team,' and their nerves often sparked against each other.

Beast Boy was funny and pretty cute. …For like maybe the first day or two. But once she had made it known to him that she thought so, he suddenly pushed really hard to be _really _funny, _all the time_, and obviously he ran out of genuinely amusing material rather quickly at that pace. It was like he was overcompensating for something, or trying to cover something up, and Raven's empathy wasn't well developed enough at the time to get a good reading on what exactly was going through his green head most of the time. A small part of her appreciated him trying to get her feeling comfortable among the group, but most of her was just irritated that he didn't know when to back off.

Raven's initially shy and tentative attitude towards these new companions quickly hardened into a dry and sarcastic shell, if anything just to protect her from all of this new, raw, unbridled energy emanating off of her housemates. Also they sort of annoyed her and she just naturally had that kind of disposition.

Starfire, though…

Starfire was completely out of this world—both literally and figuratively. On top of her extreme emotional fluctuations, she also experienced quite a bit of difficulty with earth culture. The others were usually patient enough to explain things she didn't understand, though there were a few mishaps where Beast Boy or Cyborg thought it would be funny to feed the alien girl misinformation… (An incident with a confused Stafire, a bowl of soup, and a box of tampons swiftly ended those escapades, however, when a very angry Robin found out was going on and administered a firm punishment to the two boys.)

The cultural gap was more of a canyon than a gap, and Raven already had enough of her own earthly integration to figure out to bother explaining anything to Starfire. Starfire learned to stop asking Raven questions from the indifferent shrugs and tendencies to redirect inquiries towards Robin.

But even still, there were some times when Raven just couldn't leave the golden beauty alone to her own devices. On the first day living together, Raven had to be the one to explain that eating like a starved monster is generally looked down upon in most earth cultures. On the second day, she had to reassure the girl that the toilet was indeed supposed to make those noises when it flushed and was not going to hurt her. On the third day, she had to define at least seven different euphemisms and slang phrases, and on the fourth day…

Jump City boasted mild climate most times of the year, but it was the tail-end of Autumn and temperatures were making a gradual downwards shift. It wasn't anything so extreme that Raven's usual uniform was overly uncomfortable, although every now and then her legs got chilly. Nothing her long cape couldn't handle. She wondered how Starfire could stand the cold in her skimpy purple leather, though. The Tamaranian seemed completely unaware that there had even been a change in weather, and when Raven made a comment, Starfire confirmed her suspicions. Apparently Tamaranians had a thicker skin for extreme temperatures.

So, Raven reasoned, it shouldn't have been so surprising when she walked into the Ops Room one morning and Starfire was there in the kitchen. Completely… naked.

"Oh my god," Raven exhaled, quickly adverting her eyes from her teammate's bare form. "Starfire, what—what, are you even…"

"Good morning, friend Raven!" Starfire chimed jovially, clearly not ashamed or aware of herself in the slightest. "Is it not lovely weather today? I decided to awaken early and prepare our friends a _fast of breaking_."

"_Breakfast_, Star," Raven corrected without missing a beat, staring down at her feet. "But more importantly, why are you… why are you…"

"Hm?" The red locks of hair bobbed as the alien girl tilted her head to the side. "Oh! Foolish me! I have forgotten to dress the table in appropriate silverware. Pardon my oversight."

Raven's eyes screwed closed tightly as the only other female on her team flitted from the stove to the counter, placing plates and forks in one smooth motion—still completely naked, in case anyone missed the memo. The irony of a half-demon being intensely panicked by another girl's nudity was not lost on Raven. She didn't blush or flail or anything; shock value aside, this was about as benign as seeing a sister naked. But the possibility of one of the guys walking in at any minute was enough secondhand embarrassment for Raven to grimace and tighten her jaw. How was one supposed to succinctly explain that humans were embarrassed of nudity?

Absolutely never one for prevarication, the empath finally settled with being frank. "Starfire, is there any particular reason that you're not wearing anything?" She had to try to at least be a little culturally sensitive. Maybe cooking naked was, like, some kind of ultimate expression of platonic affection or something on Tamaran, and Raven didn't want to hazard a teary-eyed Starfire. Making Starfire cry felt about as good as dropping a kitten off a roof (unless the kitten was Beast Boy trying to get off the hook for something).

"Huh?" Starfire squeaked, as if she had just been asked something as trivial as why she had a nose. "Oh, well, it was so foggy outside this morning, and it felt most refreshing upon my skin. And my uniform was in need of the wash anyway. So it seemed a good idea."

Raven wanted to die. "Did you—were you _outside_ like that?"

"Only just outside my window, but friend, what troubles you so much about my appearance?" Starfire's little eyebrows scrunched together in perplexity as she began to look over herself for flaws. "Could it be that the shaving is unacceptable to humans? I know there are some cultures on other planets that consider it distasteful, but I find it more comfortable… Oh, could it be that I have some substance stuck in my teeth?"

The girl rushed to the nearest reflective surface to check her mouth for anything offensive. Raven's palm met her forehead with an audible force.

"Starfire," the half-demon mumbled, almost pleadingly. "You look… fine. It's just, humans consider it… inappropriate… to be seen by others without clothing…"

Starfire's mouth formed a small 'O' as she processed this new information. "Oh, dear! I apologize sincerely, my friend! I had no clue… On my planet, clothing is simply worn for style, and for formal occasions…"

'_That explains why it's so minimalist,_' Raven thought to herself with a roll of her eyes, unclipping her cape and tossing it to her companion. "Just, please go get dressed. Before one of the guys sees you…"

This comment seemed to pique Starfire's curiosity. She accepted the cape with a guilty expression and wrapped it around herself as she asked, "It is more shameful for a member of the opposite sex to view one unclothed? I wish to understand this social more properly so as to not make another shameful mistake."

Raven rubbed the bridge of her nose in aggravation. "I guess. Depends on the… situation and culture. Just, in general, please keep your uniform on around the guys. Only wearing underwear is bad, too."

"But friend, I have viewed girls on the beach in swimwear even more sparing than my own undergarments. This is… the _inappropriate_?"

Why was this happening. Why was Raven explaining inappropriate exposure. She really wanted to just phase through the floor and drop this conversation completely, but she couldn't risk Starfire pulling something like this again, either. And it really wasn't fair to just leave her with a bare (no pun intended) understanding of the issue, because then she'd be left to fret over the details.

"That's only okay when it's the beach. For some reason. Don't ask me to explain why that makes any sense. It doesn't. Some people of the same gender are okay with dressing and bathing together too, but they have to be close… And the amount of clothing considered appropriate correlates to the weather. So when it's cold like this, you're supposed to wear more."

Raven marveled in retrospect at how confusing these unspoken rules were. For once, she sympathized with Starfire's cultural confusion; humans _were_ kind of weird.

"I believe I understand," Starfire said with a polite dip of her head, as if Raven had just graced the room with a formal educational discourse. "I thank you for explaining this to me, Raven. I shall be careful in the future that my level of coverage is appropriate for the given situation."

"Sure…" Raven turned out of the room, followed by Starfire, both in the pursuit of more clothing.

Right at the junction in the hallway where they were to part ways for their respective bedrooms, Starfire hesitated expectantly, like she had one more thing to ask of Raven, so the empath waited impatiently.

"Um, are undergarments permissible to wear this once while my uniform is in the washer of laundry? I am afraid the only other clothing in my possession is the Gordanian uniform I was wearing on my first day on earth, and I do not wish to wear it again…"

With an understanding nod, Raven said, "That's fine. Keep my cape on if you want, I guess. I have extras. Let me know when your uniform is clean so I can take you to the mall…"

"The _maul_?" Starfire repeated with big eyes. "I—I am already sufficiently apologetic for my error, friend…! Please, do not do the mauling of me! I am truly sorry!"

"Not _maul_, Starfire… Mall. As in a store, where you do shopping. Malls sell lots of different kinds of things, including clothes…"

"Oh! What relief. Well then, I most look forward to visiting this mall of shopping with you, friend Raven!"

"Yeah… Just go get dressed, please."


	7. tofu

_author's note: Argh, I'm gonna try to do a chapter or two on characters that aren't Beast Boy or Raven soon lol. It's just too hard, they're my favorites._

_This one's pretty mundane. Bluh._

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><p><strong>Wow This Actually Isn't From a Prompt Word So Now I Have to Come Up with a Title<strong>

**Uhhh let's call it**

**"Tofu"**

**Focus: Raven, Beast Boy**

**Word count: 2132**

* * *

><p>It was rare for any of the Titans to get truly sick, aside from the sporadic occasions where someone was guilted into giving Starfire's cooking another go. Aside from his run-in with chicken pox, Robin got a cold once in a while, and sometimes in freak instances, Cyborg did too. No one really understood it, but perhaps due to his unusual DNA, Beast Boy was never sick for more than a day or two. Starfire was allergic to metallic chromium and Raven to chickens, but both were resistant to a huge majority of earthly illnesses—Starfire due to her insane Tamaranian immune system, and Raven due to her healing abilities.<p>

So when Raven found herself clenching either side of a toilet bowl one evening, trying desperately to either keep down or expel the contents of her stomach, she was rather confused. Food poisoning from dinner was always a possibility, especially since no one in the tower was prudent enough to check expiration dates, but she seemed to be the only one suffering, so what, then…?

Finally, her stomach settled enough for her to stand up, albeit shakily. She bumped into a concerned Cyborg waiting outside of the bathroom, his brows twisted apologetically.

"You okay, Raven?" he asked, withdrawn and clearly blaming himself for her sickness since he had been the designated cook for the night.

"I'm fine. Don't worry about it," she replied, shrugging away from his supporting hands. His concern was appreciated, but she didn't want to worry him needlessly over something as insignificant as an upset tummy. "I guess my stomach's just weak today."

* * *

><p>Except it wasn't just that one day. Five times in the next week, Raven thought for sure she was going to vomit, and two of the five times she actually did (though teleportation luckily saved her both times and got her to the toilet before the event). As hard as she tried to keep it a secret, she and Beast Boy shared a bathroom, and he found out about it soon enough. Ever a hypochondriac (or maybe just a drama queen), he made a huge fuss about it and told the rest of the team.<p>

Robin did not receive this news well, just as Raven feared. She knew he was protective and just wanted to make sure everything was okay, but when he started interrogating about the symptoms, she feared her eyes would roll out of her head.

"You're sure it's nothing urgent?"

"I'm sure. It's probably just some food poisoning."

"You haven't eaten or drunk anything offered to you by a stranger, have you?"

"Do I look like a child to you?" The Mother Mae-Eye incident had taught her better, anyway.

"Nothing weird has entered your systems? No potential bug or chip or implant that could have been placed by a villain?"

"Robin, please. I think if this were anything serious, my body would start healing itself, and I've not been around any criminal that you guys weren't around. I appreciate the concern, but give it a rest."

Robin huffed, but yielded. Cyborg walked into the Ops room with the scans they'd taken earlier in the day and confirmed that nothing seemed off in Raven's systems. Starfire, who had been hovering about nervously throughout the whole ordeal, not entirely sure of what to suggest for an earthly affliction, suggested that Raven try to find a pattern.

"If it is the food poisoning, perhaps there is a specific food which is ailing you. Can you recall what you have eaten on all the days you had an unhappy stomach?"

Raven struggled to recall. Meals were never a large part of her day since she didn't get hungry all that often. Most of the time, she only took small pokes at whatever had been prepared for the sake of being polite. "I think the first time, it was… um…"

"I made pancakes with bacon and sausages," Cyborg supplied.

"Ah, right. And then after, I think maybe we ordered Chinese food? Chicken and noodles and rice and such… Then hamburgers, and then steak, and I don't remember what else."

While everyone else hummed in consideration, Beast Boy scoffed indignantly. "Why do we always get so much meat, anyway? It's a lot of work for me to make tofu substitutes all the time, you know…"

The empath opened her mouth to brush him off with a sarcastic quip, but then paused in realization. "Meat. We had meat everyday that I got sick."

"Can you get an allergy to meat?" Robin asked with his mouth quirked, skeptical.

Cyborg nodded, looking a bit horrified at the prospect. "Yeah, you can, actually. Some people's stomachs just don't digest meat well, and they develop allergies. And if it were an allergy, that would explain why Raven's magical healing voodoo isn't fixing it."

Raven grumbled slightly at the unserious description of her powers but ignored it in favor of the matter at hand. "Makes sense. So what do you suggest I do about it, then?"

"Quit eating meat," came the simple solution as Cyborg blanched at his own words.

Beast Boy, on the other hand, lit up like the Fourth of July.

"Dude! You and I can be vegetarian buddies!" he cheered, doing what Raven could only define as some kind of Vegetarian Initiation Dance. "Finally, someone I can share my awesome food with! Alright!"

"Look," she sighed, predicting trouble. "Just because I have to alter my diet a little, don't think I'm going to start eating—"

"I'm totally gonna make us tofu dogs! You're gonna love 'em, I just know it! Be right back!"

And with that he scampered off for the kitchen, leaving Raven with her mouth agape and full of interrupted objections. Cyborg cringed, Robin looked relieved that the sickness was nothing serious, and Starfire giggled a little.

Raven had a feeling she was in for a long week.

* * *

><p>"Smells good, right?" Beast Boy prompted with bright eyes and a hopeful smile. Raven was certain that if he were to shift into a dog right at that moment, his tail would be wagging. He was <em>way<em> too eager to get her in on his vegan diet, and the high energy wafting off his person was kind of giving her a headache.

"Smells… unique," she droned, staring down at the fake hot dog with about the same amount of vigor one views a dead body with. "Really, though, Beast Boy, I don't need you to get me into tofu. Cutting meat out of my diet isn't that huge of a deal, I don't eat much anyway—"

"Come on," he pleaded in that stupid, tiny voice that was awfully difficult to say no to. "I went to all the trouble of making one for you! The least you can do is take a bite, right? And if you eat some other stuff besides meat for a while, and you don't get sick, it'll let you know for sure that it's meat makin' you puke? Right?"

Raven fidgeted. He was actually being reasonable. As distasteful as tofu had always looked and smelled to her, it _was_ a little unfair of her to always reject his offers… She recalled the one time she made pancakes—if the strange, lumpy things she had produced could even really be called pancakes—and he and the others had eaten them without complaint (well, except for Cyborg). She owed him, just this once.

She sighed, resigning herself to whatever meat substitution-based fate this would send her to, and took a single, decisive bite from the tofu dog. Time stood still as she chewed the food slowly, assessing the flavors that met her taste buds, and Beast Boy stared with wrung hands. If she had formed an opinion yet, it didn't show on her face. The green boy consoled himself with the fact that at least she hadn't gagged or spat it out.

Finally, she swallowed, and her eyes flickered up to meet his. He looked like a man waiting for a fatal diagnosis from the doctor. She sighed again and said, "Needs ketchup."

Beast Boy was practically glowing. "Coming right up!"

* * *

><p>After several days of submitting herself to Beast Boy's diet, it occurred to Raven that she had, in fact, stopped getting sick. But what surprised her more was that the meals he subjected her to were… growing on her. They weren't as gross as Cyborg always made them out to be; sometimes they were weird, but sometimes they were okay, and sometimes they were actually really good. Raven had always been more partial to a natural diet anyway, most of her personal snacks consisting of fruits, breads, and a good cup of tea, and shifting her tastes towards less processed food items was a lot easier than she thought it'd be.<p>

Furthering her surprise was that Beast Boy was an extremely varied cook, having something new for them to eat everyday. Not everything he made came out perfectly, but he was a lot more accomplished in the endeavor than she could ever hope to be. It was shocking how many different ways one could prepare and dress up tofu, too. No wonder he swore by it so much.

At the end of the week, when they were sitting together and eating grilled tofu with a mediterranean salad for lunch, Raven said suddenly, "Thank you. For, uh, sharing your cooking with me this past week."

Beast Boy grinned that 10,000 kilowatt grin and nodded. "Sure, no problem! I can't believe I finally got someone into tofu. Thanks for giving it a chance."

"Yeah…" She shifted uncomfortably, poking a fork unnecessarily at her lunch. "Well, I don't think I'll be eating it anymore."

The changeling's expression seeped away and was replaced with one of confusion. "Huh? But, I thought you liked it…"

"I do. But…" Her lips pressed together in mild embarrassment. "I'd feel like a burden, having you make food for me all the time."

"What—no way! Dude, do you think I try to make you guys eat tofu all the time just for kicks? I love cooking! And I've always wanted someone I could share this stuff with." He gave her a genuine smile, and she couldn't help but attempt to emulate it. Beast Boy really was a nice guy. Aspiring towards something as selfless as providing meals for someone else was a rather sweet goal, if she was honest with herself. "Besides, isn't this supposed to be, like, every girl's dream? Having a handsome man cooking for them everyday?"

Any kind of sentimentality Raven may or may not have been feeling at the moment was promptly ground into powder and blown out the window. She gave him her trademark eyebrow quirk and snorted. "Handsome man, huh."

"Drop-dead gorgeous." He winked, and she groaned.

"Spare me."

"Alright, alright. But at least eat your tofu before it gets cold."

Raven complied, snorting again and wondering when Beast Boy became so persuasive. Or maybe she was just becoming a pushover.

* * *

><p><em>an: Another meaningless story that got out of control. Goodness.<em>

_I haven't gotten far enough to know firsthand if this is true, but I remember reading somewhere that in the original comics, Raven is actually the vegan/vegetarian/whatever (BB in the cartoon calls himself a vegetarian but he doesn't eat any animal byproducts, so isn't that actually a vegan? oh well), and Beast Boy/Changeling does eat meat and such. Again, not certain if that's true, but as always, it got me thinking in terms of how I could write a fanfic about it!_

_This was also sort of inspired by my life lately. I always feel like puking. So the obvious reaction is to write about it. Lol._

_Dialogue-driven stories are one of my biggest writing weaknesses. For some reason, I just find writing a lot of dialogue (especially with more than two characters) really difficult. Gotta work on it._

_PS, I found a canonical diagram of the Titans Tower on tumbly and I was surprised to notice that Raven and Beast Boy's rooms appear to be right next to each other? (Or at least isolated together on the same end of the hall.) And they have one bathroom nearby. So I assume they share it. I can only imagine this never ends well._

_My author's notes are too long. Thanks for the reviews, they make me so happy!_


	8. the boy wonder

_author's note: Something a little different. And sort of boring. I haven't written much lately because I got really into roleplaying, lol. So here's a few random rp starters I've written._

* * *

><p><strong>Focus: Robin<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>7. Alley<strong>

Robin inhales the late night air and thinks to himself about how nice it is to finally be alone. He doesn't have to trail behind in the shadow of a substantially taller figure, doesn't have to take orders or ask permission for anything. He's finally at the whim of his own judgement, and it feels great. Liberating.

He's also the only one he can count on now. The only thing that's got his back is his cape. Going down means game over. He's got no one to bounce ideas or doubts off of. No one to seek for support or solace, and that admittedly feels a little bit lonely.

Robin starts doubting himself, even as he apprehends a thief and puts him into his place without much trouble. What if someday, The Boy Wonder has his back turned to a much bigger threat? Who's going to call his name and tell him to look out? Who's going to offer him a hand when his face has met the cold pavement and he just can't summon the energy to get back up?

"Maybe going solo wasn't the best idea after all," he mutters to himself dejectedly. But it's too late now. It's—

Just then, a streak of green light in the sky catches his eyes, and something tells him to follow it. He has no idea what he'll find on the other end of the trail, much less does he have the slightest clue that it will lead him to a future team.

* * *

><p><strong>100. Peace at Last<strong>

Robin isn't one to change a habit if it's done him good in the past, and as a result, he's become something of a creature of habit. It takes him a lot of concentrated effort to do anything 'spontaneous,' and even when he succeeds, it tends to put him on edge.

But lately, he's been working too hard and too much, and the desire to break up the monotony is too strong. So for the first time since he can remember, Robin wakes up late, wears pajamas to the kitchen, and makes himself a bowl of cereal. Superhero and leader or not, Robin's trying to remind himself that he's still just a teenager too, and not even The Boy Wonder is immune to desiring a normal life every now and then.

Staring into his breakfast, Robin thinks about his friends. He feels a little guilty because it's not as easy for them to turn their superhero modes on and off. For him, it's as simple as changing out of his uniform. But Cyborg is half robot. Beast Boy is green. Starfire and Raven aren't even from this planet.

He's never told anyone before, but secret identity and respect towards his past mentor aside, that's also part of the reason why he refuses to take off his mask. It's not because he doesn't trust his friends. (In fact, he thinks it would be so much more comfortable to go without it sometimes.) But it's not fair, he thinks, that he can integrate himself into society so easily and leave his teammates behind. With the mask on, there's still that reminder that, yes, normal human or not, it's still Robin of the Teen Titans. And he doesn't want to remove that.

Robin stops thinking about deep, psychological matters and goes back to focusing on his bowl of sugar. It's sweet—way too sweet—and he wonders how Beast Boy can stomach this every morning. On his way to dumping it out in the sink, he notices Raven's tea kettle isn't sitting on the stove as usual, so he finds it and sets it up himself. He figures she'll appreciate it, and he could maybe use a little bit of tea himself.

* * *

><p><strong>54. Hot<strong>

Suddenly, the room is ablaze, and no amount of tugging at his collar can stop the beads of sweat rolling down Robin's forehead. He's poised to protest, but all of his good excuses are trying to come up his throat at the same time, and they just end up getting tangled and choking him.

"Uh," he manages intelligibly after a few moments of spluttering nonsense. It's not like they've never kissed before, but he's never actually… been the one to truly initiate it. Isn't that sort of thing just supposed to happen naturally? He loathes the idea of initiating it for the first time just because of some silly dare, but he doesn't want Starfire to overhear the conversation and misconstrue his hesitation as him not liking her, either.

And it's not like he… planned on never giving it a try. Just to see what happens, of course. Purely scientific reasons. Indeed.

Finally, he resigns to the fact that his voice box has taken an impromptu leave, and turns around to approach the girl in question. With his hands growing clammy beneath too-tight gloves, his heart pounding like a rumbling storm, and that collar still _completely_ suffocating him, he leans forward and meets the alien girl on the lips.

_So… now what?_

* * *

><p><strong>11. Secret<strong>

Robin's never told his teammates when his birthday is. It's not a huge secret or anything. He'll tell them if they ask. He suspects that no one's asked yet because they all assume it's just another one of his "mysterious things," but it's really more a matter of him not wanting them to fuss over him. He's just not one for having the spotlight on him, despite his position as leader. He just wants to be with his friends and enjoy their presences as if everyday were a birthday.

Material possessions don't hold a great deal of value to him either, especially since the city forwards a generous portion of funds for the Titans' personal usage. If he wants something badly enough, he'll buy it himself. As for the whole "thought that counts" sentiment, he doesn't need gifts to know that they care. So as a whole, he just doesn't really see a point to celebrating.

That doesn't stop him from sneaking into the kitchen after everyone else has gone to bed, lighting a single candle, and sticking it into a cupcake he made for himself the other day. He watches the candle flicker in the dark for a minute before blowing it out unceremoniously and mumbling between mouthfuls of red velvet, "Happy birthday to me."


	9. kings, queens, and jokers

_author's note: More Beast Boy and Raven nonsense. A little more on the friendship side than romantic this time. I don't have a specific timeline for this, but I'm thinking this one's set… idk, some time before the Birthmark story arc, but after Terra. Early enough that BB and Raven are still not that comfortable around each other, but late enough that they're sort of sometimes almost friends, too. Idk haha._

* * *

><p><strong>15. Kings, Queens, and Jokers<strong>

**Focus: Raven and Beast Boy**

**Word count: 1030**

* * *

><p>It's one of those lazy, hazy summer days where she's staring at her book but not really processing the information, and he's replaying a game he's beaten a dozen times over just for the sake of killing time. They're on opposite sides of the couch, the gap between them having been once occupied by teammates that are now long gone and busied with other tasks. The departed friends left a strange silence hanging in their wake, and both of the remaining teens can feel its heavy presence. At this point, it's just a mental game to see who shatters the silence first.<p>

Naturally, the rambunctious Beast Boy is quick to cave. He waits for a loading screen before asking, "Raven, what's our 'thing'?"

Raven doesn't lower the book from her face, despite the fact that she's stopped reading. He doesn't need to know that. "Pardon?"

"You know, like… our thing," he articulates slowly, as if that would make the statement any more sensible.

"That is not even close to making more sense than it did the first time you said it."

"Our…" The boy makes a frustrated noise at his own incoherence. "Well, like, you and Cyborg build stuff together and sometimes talk about… I don't even know, rocket science or whatever… You and Robin have your brooding and serious philosophical mumbo jumbo, and you and Starfire have your girl talks and meditation and shopping… So what about you and me? What's _our_ thing?"

The question catches Raven off guard enough for her to finally put the novel down and shoot Beast Boy an inquisitive look. This sounds like something he's been considering for a while, and she wonders why it's even on his mind in the first place.

"We have bugging each other," she responds without much thought. It sounds like a joke, but it's really not _that_ far from the truth. Not to say that she completely loathes his company—there's maybe even a very tiny, very well buried portion of her that's grown to enjoy his pestering in some capacity—but they're not exactly the most like-minded pair either.

Beast Boy looks highly unsatisfied with this answer, though. "I guess… That kind of sucks."

"Why do you say that?" Raven asks, genuinely curious.

"Well, I know I'm not exactly your favorite person, Raven, but I'd still like to think that we're friends!" He throws his hands into the air, exasperated but still maintaining a good-humored expression. "And last time I checked, friends generally do nice things together."

Raven concedes to this with a dainty folding of her hands. "That's generally the practice, yes. And we are… friends." Somehow, the admission embarrasses her a little, but she doesn't show any outward embarrassment.

"But I know you think video games are stupid, and I'm just not good with your heavy reading, and we're not really into the same genres of movies or shows…"

"Hmm." Raven thinks about their opposite preferences in entertainment and racks her mind for some sort of middle ground. What could satisfy her need for intellectual stimulation while still being fun enough to hold Beast Boy's attention?

And then inspiration strikes. "Do you know how to play chess?"

* * *

><p>He's not great, but he's a decently good sport and he understands the basic concept, and that's a lot more than Raven can say for the others. Cyborg cheats and calculates the best moves. Robin's competitive streak gets the better of him, and he tends to get too worked up about winning. Starfire usually forgets how each piece moves, and on the good days where she does manage to remember, she asks Raven endlessly about <em>why <em>the queen is so much stronger than the king? Isn't the king considered more powerful in most earth cultures? Is America a matriarchy? Does America even have a queen? The questions would always go on, and Raven gave up on engaging Starfire in board games ages ago.

After five consecutive defeats, Beast Boy starts to put up more of a fight and even knocks out a handful of her pieces during the sixth game. She still beats him, but at the loss of a knight and both bishops. Not bad at all.

"With practice, I could see you getting good at this," Raven says with a warm tint to her voice that Beast Boy's not used to hearing aimed at him.

"You don't have to be nice, Raven," he chides. "I suck at chess."

"Yeah, you do," she easily admits, never one for sugarcoating anything. "But still, you'll get better. And it'll become more fun when you do."

Beast Boy nods, a hopeful grin spreading across his face. "It _was_ kinda fun. It sort of reminds me of an obstacle course, except with less lasers. So, can this be our 'thing,' then?"

The empath rolls her eyes at his persistent insistence of them sharing a 'thing,' but the corner of her mouth quirks upwards just a bit. If anything, she's flattered that he wants so badly to share some common ground with her. "Sure, why not. Chess is our… 'thing.'"

At these words, Beast Boy brightens up like a Christmas tree, and it's almost… cute. Almost.

"So," she transitions, sweeping the pieces back into their box with a wave of magic. "While that was fun, it _was_… more geared towards my tastes. Do you want to pick a movie for us to watch or something?"

Beast Boy tilts his head, ears perked up eagerly but his eyebrows scrunched in perplexity. "Really?"

"It's only fair. Just don't pick a musical or something stupid," she amends with a brief nod. "We both sort of like horror movies, right? Just nothing too… intense."

She's hardly even finished with the sentence before Beast Boy practically _rockets_ into the kitchen to pop popcorn and then back into the living room to put a DVD into the player. Raven shakes her head a little and joins him on the couch, steeling herself for whatever he picked. Bonding time or not, there's no way she's going to let herself grab onto his arm during the scary parts like those girls do in the stupid movies.

* * *

><p><em>an: This is inspired by them playing chess together in the TTG comics. I saw that issue and immediately said "I'm writing fanfiction about that." <em>


	10. break up

_author's note: Blahaha can't stop writing about these two_

* * *

><p><strong>5. Break Up<strong>

**Focus: who do you think**

**Word count: 912**

* * *

><p>Raven was a little surprised when it was Beast Boy—and not Starfire—who was at her side and asking her if she 'needed to talk' the day following the whole Malchior incident. She knew he was the most concerned throughout the ordeal, but she had chalked a lot of his solicitousness up to a mixture of nosiness and jealousy and figured now that the enchanted traitor was gone, Beast Boy would be quick to put him out of his mind.<p>

But evidently, that was not the case.

The entire team was sympathetic to her, which was both flattering and irritating; Raven was honestly just eager for things to revert to normalcy, wishing to forget that anything had caused ripples in the first place. Robin and Cyborg showed their sympathy mainly through actions. They both treated Raven with particular cautiousness, and it made her feel like a crate of glass tiaras, but at least they were quiet. Starfire, on the other hand, kept giving her these pitying expressions, like she felt really terrible for Raven and just wanted to hold her and bake her questionable cookies and girl talk all the problems away, none of which the empath was in the mood for, of course. Yet at the same time, Starfire took meticulous care to not breach the subject, and Raven was starting to get the impression that the Tamaranian was trying to leave room for…

Beast Boy. Raven had escaped up to the roof—for once, not to get away from noise, but rather to embrace the ambient sounds and escape the unspoken condolences of her friends. Beast Boy just did what he did best—not taking a hint—and followed her up.

"Do you need to talk about it?" he offered meagerly, settling down beside the girl with a wary smile.

"No," she responded flatly, and the speed with which his expression deflated was enough to guilt her into elaborating, "I mean, I appreciate it. But there's not really anything to talk about."

"Come on, Raven. You can't keep locking this kinda stuff up. Trust me, it tears you up inside… having your heart broken like that."

Raven bristled slightly at the strange timbre of his voice, a worried crease marring her otherwise stoic face. "Beast Boy…" She sighed and shook her head, as if resigning herself to something. "I can't even begin to compare my own situation to yours. It hurts, yes, I won't lie. But I should have known from the beginning that trusting him so blindly, even against my better judgment, was foolish. The blame falls on my shoulders. I feel bad, but I wouldn't really call this the stereotypical 'post-breakup' depression. If anything, it's more like guilt."

"Don't blame yourself," he said with a certain seriousness that captured Raven's attention and made her search his mannerisms for sincerity. "It's not your fault that he was a jerk. A really convincing jerk."

"That he was," she conceded, crossing her legs and leaning forward on her elbows. "In any case, I'm not dwelling on it as much as I could be because I realized I wasn't really in love with him."

Beast Boy's eyes widened with genuine surprise at this information. "Really? Coulda fooled me, I thought you were gonna up and marry Mr. Paper-Mâché for a while there…"

"Pft." It was almost a laugh. Almost, but not quite. "No. I mean, I _thought _I was in love with him. Manipulation aside, he was thoughtful and charming and funny…" Beast Boy's gaze was growing prickly, so she abruptly ended that thought, "…but I didn't really _know _him as a person. Outside of the whole magic thing, I don't know that he even really had any hobbies or interests. I was infatuated, but I didn't love him. Just the way he made me feel."

"How did he make you feel?"

Raven cast her eyes downwards, embarrassed and slightly ashamed of herself for being just as susceptible to foolish whimsies as any other human girl. "I don't know… Maybe, accepted."

"You'll always be accepted among the Titans," he reminded her gently, his characteristic fang popping out as he gave a timid smile. "Sorry if I've ever made you feel otherwise. In case you haven't noticed, fitting in has never exactly been a walk in the park for me either."

"I know. It must be so hard being so short."

Beast Boy exclaimed in mock offense, but the small quirk in her lips did not escape his sight, and he was proud of himself for cheering her up enough to joke again. Even if it was at his own expense. "You _know _I meant the green thing, smartass. And just you wait. In a few years, I'm gonna shoot up like a tree."

"Will you still be as scrawny as one, too?" Raven suggested with a full-blown smirk, playfulness flashing in her eyes. Beast Boy loved that face. She looked so vivid and alive, so close to accepting the idea of emotional expression. He knew that after this exchange, she would probably revert to the usual blank-faced, deadpan snarker that he'd become so accustomed to, but that was okay. He'd still be around for the next time she showed a brief glimpse into herself. He'd make sure of it.

"No way, dude, I'm not talking about any wimpy palm trees… I'm talkin', like, full on _sequoia trees_."

"Are you using trees as a euphemism for something?"

"I'm n—_what_? NO!"

* * *

><p><em>an: I have a running bad habit of writing a long-winded introduction to a story and then not really care about tying up the ending properly. Ah, well.<em>


	11. 18 collections

_author's note: Just some rapid fire prompt-filling, as well as some short stories that were requested. Various characters. I've been collecting this up for a while, so sorry there's a lot..._

* * *

><p><strong>1. Persist<strong>

He insists that he'll never cease in his teasing until he gets her to laugh, and the notion alone nearly makes her laugh on the spot. She doesn't, of course, and her scowling persists. She fears that once he's gotten what he wants, he'll lose interest in her. It wouldn't be the first time such a thing happened to her.

* * *

><p><strong>2. Cruel<strong>

Blackfire was undeniably pretty. A stark contrast to Starfire's light and effervescent atmosphere, there was something fierce and darkly alluring about Blackfire's person. She seemed to know exactly how to operate her hips suggestively with every movement and flutter her long, brush-like eyelashes at others just so. But whether smiling or sneering, there was an undeniably unsettling quirk to her mouth that one might not notice if they weren't expecting to see it. A small dimple of hateful pride. The tiniest quirk of disdain. An insincere shadow that fell over her round lips and emanated cruelty.

As astute as Robin fancied himself to be, he failed to catch it until the last minute.

* * *

><p><strong>3. Burning<strong>

He never imagined it would end like this. The lava is all around him, seeping straight through his armor like paper, chewing on his flesh and sucking him down to the marrow. In his final moments, he doesn't have the capacity to think of vengeance or even regret. His thoughts are consumed by pain, and then white magma fills his vision, pouring into his eye sockets like batter into a bowl.

This is it, he barely manages to think as the final thread of consciousness is about to be snipped. Killed by a mere child.

Death, he finds, however, is not the end.

* * *

><p><strong>4. Disappointing<strong>

Beast Boy is surprisingly displeased when he accidentally discovers how ticklish Raven's stomach is one day. When she follows the sulking boy out of the room and asks what the big deal is, he exclaims, "Figures that the only time I get you to laugh is completely by accident!"

* * *

><p><strong>5. Secret<strong>

It hurts. The burden of another's emotional and physical anguish hurts, but it's something Raven bears without complaint. She knows that if her teammates found out, they would never ask her for healing again. She can handle it, she tells herself, even on the days where it feels like it's pulling her apart at the seams.

She can handle it. She has to.

* * *

><p><strong>6. Song<strong>

"Beast Boy, I swear to God, if you don't stop singing that song, I'm going to dropkick you with all the strength of a raging fire," Robin hissed, glowering at his teammate. Normally, he had more patience for his younger teammate, but this was day seven of Beast Boy: The Musical, and Robin's patience had expired two days ago.

"Aww, come on, dude. Don't be a sourpuss." The changeling morphed into a cat and mewed for emphasis. Robin only narrowed his gaze. Switching back, Beast Boy added, "It's not my fault this song is so catchy! Besides, Star digs it."

"What?"

"Yeah, watch! Hey, Star! BE A MAN!"

Starfire looked up and sang on cue, "You must be swift as a coursing river!"

She and Beast Boy proceeded to reenact the entire sequence. Robin groaned and decided to just retreat to his room for the day.

* * *

><p><strong>7. Confidence<strong>

"What's with that?"

"Hm?"

"That little… hair-tuck you do." He gestures to the locks of hair nestled safely behind her right ear. "I've only ever seen you do it a few times, and it's all been within the last couple of months."

She fails to see where he's going with this, and her confusion spells itself out easily on her features. "What are you on about?"

"Like_… _I got so used to your face always being covered by a hood. And then when you started pulling it back more often, your hair was always in your face."

He brushes tentative fingers against her exposed cheek. "But now, sometimes when you're talking, you do that hair-tuck, and I can see your face way better."

"I honestly didn't notice, and frankly, I'm surprised you_ have_."

"When someone's as routine as you, Rae, it's kinda hard _not _to notice changes."

* * *

><p><strong>8. Barren<strong>

"I'm sorry," he repeats with a broken expression and a clenched heart. "I don't… I mean, I'd _love… _to raise a child with you, but—"

"Cyborg," she interrupts, placing a silencing finger on his lips. "It's alright. It's not your fault. There's alternatives."

"I know." He tries so hard not to crumble in front of her, but this hurts more than he expected it to. Just another aspect of his life that will never be normal due to his body. And here he thought he'd finally learned to cope with being different.

"I know."

* * *

><p><strong>9. Obvious<strong>

Robin was always really obvious about when he was in a sour mood. Try as he might to put on a polite smile and appear as though he were enjoying himself, his entire person radiated obvious distaste for this situation. Starfire was not an empath, but she could almost physically feel his emanating anger.

Crossing the busy dance floor, managing to only get stepped on once or twice, she approached the boy who was currently glaring at the punch bowl as if it had peed on his wardrobe and called his mother fat. "Robin, why don't you come do the 'mingling' with me?" she suggested gently, resting a hand on his upper arm.

He shrugged away from her touch, taking a vengeful sip of the offensive punch. "I'm gonna kill Bruce. I can't believe he made us come to this stupid party. Tricking us into thinking it was a gift… These people are all industry leaders. He's using us as schmoozing tools."

Starfire nodded in a way that she hoped looked sympathetic, sensing that Robin was in no mood to define 'schmoozing.' She just guessed it was something bad and left it at that. "Well, despite your father's deception, at least one good thing has come of this."

"What's that?"

"You look most fetching in a suit," she answered, flashing a sly smile. Robin found himself laughing and couldn't bring himself to sulk anymore that evening.

* * *

><p><strong>10. Persuade<strong>

After a good ten minutes of arguing that milking a cow is actually good for it, and therefore there's nothing unethical about drinking milk, she finally persuades him to eat regular ice cream with her. Two bowls later, they discover that Beast Boy is intensely lactose intolerant; she is subjected to twenty minutes of him screaming, "I TOLD YOU THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA," even as he's locked himself in the bathroom.

* * *

><p><strong>11. Falling<strong>

When Robin opens his eyes, he's falling. There is nothing but him and the sky all around; it seems to have engulfed him completely, leaving him disoriented and uncertain of whether he's falling up or down. The ground is like a faint smudge, eons away. He's aware that he should be scared—terrified—but for the time being, he just thinks with a calmness that's almost disconcerting in itself.

Oh, right. The spaceship… While engaging some aliens who were causing inter-dimensional mischief, one of the monsters had opened a hatch and kicked Robin off. Robin remembers that he stumbled about clumsily for a birdarang, but his hands found one just a bit too late. The wound in his side was a distraction.

The wound seems to make itself present the moment he remembers it. It stings, open and exposed to the air flying by. He watches blood stream upwards from it with a morbid sort of fascination. No one saw him receive the injury, and for all he knows, no one's even noticed that he's gone yet. He hopes that they're fending off the invaders better than he did. He wishes that he were there to help. He regrets…

"Robin!" His name seems like a muffled whisper on the ceaseless howl of the wind, and before he knows it, another body is pressing up against him and holding him in strong, secure arms. They're flying, maybe. It's hard to tell anymore, and he's feeling rather dizzy.

"Stafire," he utters, squinting up at his savior and instinctively nestling against her warmth. His vision is beginning to blossom with black spots and everything wants to shut down, but he takes a momentary refuge in the knowledge that he's safe now.

"I knew you'd catch me," he manages before succumbing to sleep.

* * *

><p><strong>12. Villain<strong>

It wasn't just the nice words and the pretty smile that won Jinx over to the 'good' side; she's a little more resilient to masculine charms than that. Rather, it was the appearance of complete sincerity behind those compelling eyes, the mask of concern, accompanied by the encouragement that she really could be _better_.

Too bad for her when she learns that she's not the first girl he's won over with a puppy dog face and some cheap speeches of reassurance. So much for being better.

* * *

><p><strong>13. Hair<strong>

"Have you ever considered cutting your hair short?" Robin asked, armed with a brush and a bottom of spray, navigating his way through the tangled jungle Terra called a mane.

"Star keeps her hair long," Terra rebutted defensively, folding her hands. She hissed quietly as he worked out a particularly stubborn mat, but otherwise remained still and patient.

"Star doesn't have powers that involve dirt and mud." He mumbled a quick apology as the brush snagged on another mass and spritzed a few swift sprays of water. "Seriously, this is like trying to cut through a jungle with a butter knife."

"I like my hair," she insisted. "It's one of the few things… pretty, about me."

"Hey. That's not true." Robin leaned over her shoulder to see her face. His mouth was crinkled reprovingly. "You're a pretty girl. You'd be pretty even if you were bald."

Terra flushed slightly, but she dispelled any potential tension with a snort. "God forbid that ever happen. Thanks though. How about you? You ever try growing your hair out?"

Robin paused to imagine it before shaking his head. "Nah. That'd be weird. Wouldn't look as nice on me as it does on you."

* * *

><p><strong>14. Under the Stars<strong>

"And that one's Major Ursula," he informs her, pointing at a cluster, "the military bear of the skies…"

"You're just making things up now," she remarks with a roll of her eyes and a faint upwards twist in her mouth.

"Dude, I've been making things up all evening. It's more fun that way."

* * *

><p><strong>15. Dear girlfriend,<strong>

Hi… Uh, you probably know better than anyone that I'm bad with words when it comes to this kind of stuff. Okay, bad is probably a gross understatement—I'm horrible. But I'm going to do my best here, hoping that writing words is a little easier than saying them, so bear with me.

Well, to start, I don't know what I did to deserve someone as nice and faithful as you. You've seen me at my worst, not just once or twice, but so many times, and I feel like I've failed you just as many times. All the times I've lost my temper, or made a bad decision, or got my priorities all messed up… you've always trusted me and shown me grace. When things were at their darkest, you were still there for me one hundred percent.

And I've gotta say, if it weren't for you, I don't think I'd be the person I am today. I was… a little lacking, in the encouragement and affection departments as a kid. I just wasn't raised that way, and when you came into my life, it was like, I don't know. Like I had been in a desert without water for years and years, and then suddenly I tripped into a lake. Except, less startling, I guess. More pleasant. You know what I mean, I hope.

Basically, you're just this bundle of joy in my life, and I've really grown to depend on you for that. You find wonder in even the most simple things, things I would have never even noticed before, and I hope that we can keep finding happiness in new experiences together.

I hope that I can provide everything you've ever dreamed of, because it's the least I can do for the girl with the patience to have faith in someone like me.

I want to keep giving you things to say "glorious" over.

* * *

><p><strong>16. Speak<strong>

Even after Cyborg's obsession with hyperactive multitasking has subsided, he continues to receive the occasional lesson in Tamaranian from Starfire, finding that it's both interesting and enjoyable for the both of them. In return, he helps her weave her way through the trickier colloquialisms of english, and overall, it's an educational bonding experience.

"It is a shame you cannot simply learn languages through lip contact like I do," Starfire remarks one day as they're wading through some complicated grammar rules. "Granted, there are still a great deal of things I do not understand, despite my instantaneous language transfer. But still, it is more convenient."

Cyborg hums noncommittally, not entirely sure he'd be comfortable with engaging in 'lip contact' with Starfire, anyway. Besides, learning it the traditional way is fun. "Hey, speakin' of languages, Raven knows, like, six or seven. German and Romanian and all sorts of other crazy stuff."

It's a harmless comment that he only brings up for the sake of being conversational, but the twinkling that crosses Starfire's eyes immediately alerts him that he's just set something potentially very bad into motion. Before he can even backtrack, Starfire's standing up and saying, "Most fascinating. I will be back in a moment, I believe I am about to… 'broaden my horizons' a bit."

He's proud of her for using the phrase properly, but not particularly thrilled about the thrashing sounds he hears from down the hall a few moments later.

* * *

><p><strong>17. Strength<strong>

When stripped of his armor, Robin is still strong. Still strong, but still woefully human, a fact that weighs heavily on him as the boulder comes down and he reacts just a moment too late. In this line of work, accidents are not an option, but it seems he just didn't have a choice this time.

In his state of desperation, he focuses on breathing. In and out. The basics. If he's alive, there's still a chance. Even if his chest feels like it's caving upon him like a sandcastle left to the tide, even if his bones ache against him like old gears, rusty and forgotten, the least he can do is keep breathing. His arms feel like columns of shattered glass, but _still_, he pushes because there's no way he's going down without a fight.

"Don't leave me behind, you guys," he breathes into the dusty air as he struggles, despite being alone. "I'm—I'm right behind you."

Robin's strength lies perhaps not as much in physicality as it does in determination.

* * *

><p><strong>18. Limit<strong>

"Stop," she says, and as usual, he defies.

"No way."

* * *

><p><em>AN: Some of these are purposely vague so that you can fill in the characters, but I wrote most of them with the obvious choices in mind. 8 in particular left the female companion blank, since I ship Cyborg with too many ladies to decide on one. Jinx, Bee, Raven, Starfire, Sarah, whatever. Fill in whichever girl you want.<em>

_I plan on revisiting the concept in 5 in a separate story, eventually..._


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